Alex Jeffreys has been running a contest for students in his Marketing With Alex 2.0 training programme. I did enter the “results video” for my earlier Blog Of The Day contest and thought I’d never get around to doing another one. But rather late in the day, I got the idea for a second entry and I thought, “Yeah, I could do that fairly quickly, no trouble !” … as long as Alex takes it in the right way ! So here it is:
As it turned out it was NOT easy to do ! I could do it even better, but I have lived, breathed and slept this for the last few days and I have been neglecting the rest of my life (including my other marketing activities) trying to finish it. But even if it was late, I was determined to finish it anyway. I should say that the first character you see is not really me. Various technical difficulties prevented me filming myself … that’s what forced this approach. And in case anybody is in any doubt, it’s NOT Alex either … but you have to watch it to understand why
PS: if anybody is interested in how it was done, leave a comment and I will post a little on the technicalities.
Regular readers will know that I am a student of Alex Jeffreys Marketing With Alex 2.0 internet marketing training programme. We’re lucky enough to have the benefit of the experience of several of the graduates of “MWA” 1.0, chief amongst which is Gary Simpson.
Gary has resurrected an idea that he tried out for the 1.0 students, a game (?) of what I shall call “blog tag”. You can read all about it here. Anyway, rog-blog.com Blog Of The Day Award winner, Heidi Passey has “tagged” me, so now I have to reveal all ! Deep breath – in no particular order … here goes !
1. I lived in Scotland for 8 years when I was a teenager. I never picked up an accent, but I will occasionally come out with one or two Scottish idioms in my speech.
2. Like Gary, I can’t stand beetroot ! Which is odd, because my mother told me that when I was a babe, I would gorge myself on cheese and beetroot sandwiches. Euch !
3. Again whilst younger, my mother would lift me up to the kitchen cupboard and ask what I wanted for supper. Apparently, I would point at the Marmite jar and say “shammydid”. It took my parents months to work out that what I was asking for was a Marmite sandwich ! (Aussies will recognise Marmite as the nearest thing to Vegemite, which I think is slightly different. If you have no idea what I am on about, check out these links: Marmite and Vegemite.)
4. I can do the waltz, the slow foxtrot, the quickstep, the tango and the Viennese Waltz (which is different than the ordinary waltz – much faster, a little more “dangerous” !). On the latin side, I can do the cha-cha-cha, the rumba, the samba and the jive. I also dance salsa and have previously studied two styles of tango argentino (which is quite different from “ballroom” tango) and the mambo.
Those of us that have been dancing from w-a-y back felt very smug a few years ago when it suddenly became cool to be able to dance following the success of Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing With The Stars. But unlike them, we don’t dress up with sequins and split to the navel shirts. Everybody should learn to dance. Highly recommended.
5. I like tuneful music. That can cover everything from classical to pop via jazz to folk with a number of stops in between. If you love music, it definitely enhances your love of dancing too !
6. I sung in the choir at school and we were broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland. But I’m afraid that my singing voice is pretty poor these days
7. I would like to learn to play the bass guitar.
8. I have logged more time in the air at supersonic speed than most pilots in the Royal Air Force. At least, this is what I was told when I was a passenger on one of the charter flights that used to be run on Concorde before she was taken out of service. I don’t know whether that’s true, but I can tell you that the sense of acceleration when we took off is unlike anything I have ever experienced ! They told us that we’d be accelerating from 0 to about 240mph in less than 30 seconds. Our 90 minute flight from London’s Heathorw airport went out over the Bay Of Biscay before heading to Paris. We returned home next day on a Boeing 737. By comparison, going down the runway in that felt like travelling behind a horse and cart !
9. I have flown over the Grand Canyon in both a jet plane and a helicopter. Wow !
10. I was (still am pretty much) sports mad as a youngster. For those that don’t know the wonderful subtleties of the game of cricket, this will mean nothing. But at the age of 11, I took a wicket with my first ball in competitive cricket (for my school side). It was a full toss and the batter smashed it past me – I took the catch, throwing myself full length to my left like a soccer goalie. The batter couldn’t believe it ! (Neither could I !) My bowling analysis that day: 5 overs, 4 maidens, 3 wickets for 2 runs.
11. I carried on playing cricket in Scotland – yes, there is a hard core of very keen cricketers in Scotland ! My single biggest sporting claim to fame: I took a run from the bowling of the man who (I was told) had previously held the world record for achieving the highest score in first class cricket. Those in the know will probably be able to guess who this was, though I won’t name him in case what I was told was wrong. And besides which, it would then not be much of a claim to fame !
12. In my last year at school, I won the prize for French. But it was more than 20 years before I actually visited France.
13. I have twice appeared on stage in improvised comedy shows before paying customers. I learned how to do this on workshops run by a fantastic little company in London called The Spontaneity Shop. It’s NOT stand-up – the nearest thing that most people are familiar with is the old Whose Line Is It Anyway ? tv shows. I am delighted to see these being rerun in the UK on Dave.
14. I used to take, process and print my own black and white photographs, “analogue style” ! That’s to say, in a dark room with an enlarger and trays of developer, “stop” and “fixer”. Digital technology makes it all too easy these days !
15. I am a Friend of Shakespeare At The Tobacco Factory, the highly acclaimed theatre company based in what was (believe it or not) a tobacco factory in Bristol. Now in its 10th year, it has survived more than one funding crisis to go on and sell out for almost every performance in recent years. It regularly garners huge critical acclaim for its minimalistic productions, performed “in the round” in the Tobacco Factory’s unique space. Last year, the world famous polymath, Sir Jonathan Miller directed a fantastic performance of Hamlet. Unmissable.
17. When I first started in IT, I was a programmer. We wrote our COBOL program instructions down in pencil on sheets of paper that were transferred on to 80 column punched cards that were fed in to the “beast”, a huge mainframe computer that occupied all of the ground floor of our building. “Personal Computers” had still not been invented at this point (1980), but now even your mobile phone could probably out-perform it. We have come a l-o-n-g way since then !
18. I know for a fact that programs that I wrote more than 20 years ago are still in daily use today.
19. When I was at school in Scotland, I was asked if I wanted to learn to play a musical instrument. Having struggled with the piano in earlier years, for some reason, I was keen on learning to play the clarinet. On asking for this, I was told that there were no clarinets left in the school orchestra. “But,” they said, “You can learn the viola if you like … it’s just like the clarinet !” The lessons lasted for a year. It’s not like the clarinet at all !
20. I returned to the piano in later life and also took lessons on the Spanish Guitar – a beautiful but infuriating instrument. Not like the clarinet either !
21. My first foreign trip was to Portugal. I wanted some stamps to put on post cards (remember them ?) to send home. I memorised the Portuguese for “Please can I have four stamps to send post cards to England ?” and walked in to the store. The lady behind the counter looked me up and down as I entered and said “Yes, can I help you ?”
22. One of my all time heroes: Spike Milligan. He used to list himself in his scripts as “Spike Milligna, the well-known typing error” ! He is the so-called “father of alternative comedy” because he inspired the members of Monty Python and others too numerous to mention. Retrospectives have shown that in many respects, he was clearly not a balanced individual, but he was an inspired comic and is sadly missed.
23. Last summer, I emerged from a greetings card store near my home in Bristol, only to be confronted by John Cleese, one of the members of Monty Python’s Flying Circus who went on to become an international star of TV and movies. He was back in town to speak to his alma mater, Clifton College, and to visit the neighbouring Bristol Zoo, where he fell in love (as it were) with the lemurs when he visited as a schoolboy. I was so taken aback, I couldn’t think of anything to say. Probably just as well … he had his “Basil Fawlty” look on.
24. Current favourite tipple: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Beer drinkers in the UK generally take a dim view of American beers, but many smaller US brewers produce excellent stuff. However, I discovered SNPA a few years ago when my local supermarkert started selling it. Best with a curry. Try it – you may like it !
25. Like Garry, I love the English language. I don’t really know the proper syntax most of the time, but I do try to write so that it sounds “proper” I know that language shifts and changes, and I like that, but a lot of the mangling of language offends my sense of aesthetics … in other words, it just sounds naff !
For example, I get frustrated when radio and TV presenters use singular verbs with plural nouns and vice versa. They should know better ! For example, today I heard somebody say, “There is traffic problems south of London”. You mean “There are traffic problems south of London”. Grrrr ! A grammar-policeman would say “problems” is clearly plural so you use “are” not “is”. And that’s true, but for me, it just sounds so ugly and that’s the worse offence. My old English teacher must finally have stopped turning in his grave now that I am starting to pick others up on proper grammar. Shame it’s from the BBC. Rant over.
Is it really almost a week since I last blogged ? And when I did, was that post on the importance of blogging ? LOL !
Well, yes. And even though I feel a little guilty about that, on reflection, I feel that I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. Because in the time since I last posted, I have been busy.
The thing that has taken most of my time is a project that I really still really can’t talk about as it is some way from fruition. But one that I can describe is the addition of a new product to my portfolio.
This is another product from Alex Jeffreys, one that he has kindly made available to people like me, students on his Marketing With Alex 2.0 training programme.
It’s another of his fantastic free reports, Post Launch Profits Secrets.
I could go on at great length about why you should get your own copy at absolutely no cost right now, but it would be easier to let the man himself tell you more about it.
Today sees the publication of a totally new free report, The Top 10 Reasons Why You Need A Blog !
It’s my belief that almost any business that has an online presence, no matter how small, would benefit from having a blog of some kind.
In this free report, I explore the arguments in favour of having a blog. It’s never been easier to have a great looking blog at almost zero cost. For me, the potential benefits, both tangible and otherwise, make it a no-brainer.
The release of this report is important for me in another way. It marks the launch of the rog-blog.com Mailing List. As I say in my report, I see members of a mailing list as “best friends” because these are the first group of people that I will share my best stuff with.
When I spot something particularly interesting or useful, mailing list members will be the first to know. For example, I already have plans for not one but two more free reports.
I really want this report to have the widest possible circulation, so please use the opt-in box in the sidebar to get your free copy now.
As the title of this post suggests, in marketing circles Rich is often known as The Guru’s Guru. That’s because he has “made” more millionaires than any other coach. Marketers that are already very successful pay him not 4-figure, but 5-figure sums to go on his training programmes.
That’s why my internet marketing coach, Alex Jeffreys, paid an eye-watering sum to be coached by Rich. And I know that Alex assigns huge credit to Rich for his own spectacular success over the last couple of years.
So it was a stunning surprise to find that Alex had arranged a bonus webinar with Rich for his Marketing With Alex 2.0 training programme students. For me, Alex didn’t need to big this up because I was already aware of Rich and his status within the marketing community. I knew that this was the kind of session that you just don’t normally get the chance to hear unless you part with BIG bucks. I knew it would be good. But even I was surprised !
What struck me about Rich was that he is very, very focussed. He tells you what he’s gonna tell you, then he tells you. His mind is so sharp and incisive and he brings such huge experience to the table. What’s more, as the King of Over-Delivery, he stayed on the call for around two and a half hours, way beyond the allotted time.
So BIG thanks to Rich for his time, expertise and skill and a HUGE thank you to Alex for pulling off this coup. Oh, and one last piece of advice…
If you ever get the chance to listen to, read or watch Rich Scheferen, grab it as quickly as you can !You won’t be disappointed.
Yesterday, I heard that Yahoo have proposed a scheme whereby individuals could choose to pay to send email. It’s known as CentMail because the idea is that each “stamp” that you buy to go on your email would cost one cent.
I should stress that the cash goes to a charity of your choice and that this is only “a research project” at this stage. They also cite the laudable intent of impacting the volume of spam, suggesting that even at 1 cent per email, that would cost spammers millions of dollars each day.
They say that the system would be entirely voluntary and “opt-in”. They go on to suggest that …
“CentMail will essentially be free for the majority of users who already give yearly charitable donations. … By making these donations through CentMail (as opposed to directly to the charity), users will spend no additional money, but will be provided with CentMail’s service.” (Source: centmail.net/faq)
I really don’t have a strong opinion on this one way or the other at the moment because I don’t know enough about all of the underlying issues. But I can foresee problems. For example, overlooking the fact that although the US is, of course, probably the largest internet user, it’s not the only one ! Besides, my favourite charities may not participate in the scheme.
There will also be those that consider that this is fundamentally against the ethos of the internet, that access to it should be largely unrestricted.
Whatever happens, the way I see it is this. If you’re using the internet to foster a relationship with your prospects and customers and it suddenly costs you money to send them email, you had better have fairly deep pockets or some alternative way of keeping that relationship alive. Social media may be one way, but the best alternative may be your blog.
Well, at long last Alex’s traffic competition has come to an end and therefore so has my own little contest, the rog-blog.com Blog Of The Day Awards. The winner is announced at the end of the video shown below.
I’d like to thank everybody that supported Blog Of The Day. It was an experience that taught me a lot and I aim to apply what I have learned in my blogging in the future. I should also add that there were some great blogs that I couldn’t include in the awards, simply because there were not enough days !
Finally, two things: first, I started out with the intention of making occasional awards for Commendable Comments … but I just didn’t have the time to read all the comments for all of the posts on all of the blogs I looked at. Sorry folks.
Secondly, I will continue The rog-blog.com Blog Awards in some format in the future. I haven’t dcided quite how, but it won’t be daily. More likely weekly or monthly. Watch this space for more news !
So here it is: a review of the winners followed by the revelation of the winner, The Blog Of Blogs. My congratulations to the winner !
First up, an apology to BOTD fans: I was under the impression that Alex Jeffreys’ traffic competition ended yesterday, Thursday 13th, and I have been alluding to that in all of my posts this week. But no, it ends today ! This is, of course, a Good Thing because it gives me the chance to recognise one more blog.
The Bad News is that I am still between a rock and a hard place because there are several contenders for that last place ! So, if you didn’t make it, I’m sorry … I had to pick one and just one today. Let me tell you about it, because I think that it has an important message for us all.
Over the last couple of weeks, I have tried to look at as many blogs as I can, as often as I could manage. Today’s winner followed the same path as quite a few others: an initial struggle to overcome technical problems followed by a change in look and feel, then steady improvement.
But looking at it today, I found a post which touched and inspired me. I won’t say more because you will have your own reaction to it when you read it.
I should also say that after starting to write this post, I wondered if some people might consider my drawing attention to it like this to be “bad form”, that what it describes is too personal to be trivialised by associating it with my little contest.
If you feel like that, I’m sorry, I don’t. I assume that the story was posted so that readers can learn from it. If that’s so, then I want to draw even more people’s attention to it. Please read it. I’d ask you to consider how it affects you and (more importantly perhaps), what you will do differently because of that … not just in terms of our coaching and your business, but also in terms of your life.
So the final Blog Of The Day Award goes to Huddson Lee for www.EnjoyMarketingOnline.com. (An appropriate domain name too.)
Congratulations Huddson – your Blog Of The Day badge may be little consolation in the circumstances, but thanks for sharing your story with us.
PS: As promised, I will announce the overall winner of the title Blog Of Blogs after Alex’s traffic competition ends. But I have a busy day tomorrow, so it will probably be Sunday. Watch this space.
Well, we’re coming down the home straight in my Blog Of The Day Awards and as explained yesterday, with so many good blogs to look at, picking the limited number of winners gets trickier ! Let me tell you about my choice today …
It seems to me that a lot of thought has gone in to this site. I like its theme and when you read it, it’s evident that the author has previous internet marketing experience. Each post is clearly thought out – in fact, the author talks about how and why she does this in her latest post.
Other recent posts alert us to the difficulties that she and others had with one programme (and why we should avoid it !), and how one of her other blogs got on to page 1 of Google. (Very nice going !). “Public Service Announcements” like this and Conspicuous Achievement in an Ultra-Competitive Niche both score highly on my Blog Of The Day criteria.
Delving further back we find an article about AdSense that made me realise that this blog is actually a bit different to most of the others that have won in this contest. Not only does it have AdSense, it also has some banner-style ads at the end of each post and a peel-away ad.
My reflex reaction to these is negative because I see them as possible exit points for visitors. But if you read the AdSense article, you will realise that the blog is actually using the tactics described in it. So it must be working ! And if it makes you cash, then you really can’t argue with that
I suggest that you take a peek at the blog I referred to earlier, the Page 1 of Google blog, as I think that we can learn a lot from that too. Finally, buried back in earlier posts, is something which is almost certain to make you laugh out loud. Check it out here.
So for blogging that is scientific and combines discussion of serious issues that deserve our attention with lovely humorous touches, Petra Weiss wins today’s Blog Of The Day for petra-weiss.com
Congratulations, Petra ! Your Blog Of The Day Award badge is on its way !
Sheeesh ! This is getting tricky … Only today and tomorrow left in Alex Jeffreys’ traffic competition so that means only two more Blog Of The Day Awards are left to be made. But there are more than two blogs that I want to mention here ! I am going to have to make some tough decisions …
But today’s winner is somebody that I just can’t leave out. For a long time now, he’s been producing some really good content on his blog, both text and video. He’s been innovative too: for example, he’s run one competition already and has another planned for later this month. Plus, he has just started a beta video marketing site, that that looks like an interesting idea.
This guy would be another in the hypothetical “Where the Heck Does He Find The Time ?” category of my awards.
I say this because he’s doing most of this whilst working away from home. This is something that I used to do and I know that it can take an awful lot out of you. I used to wake up in the mornings and look to see which side of the bed my alarm clock was on – that was what told me where I was ! But our winner today seems to be doing all of this whilst working full time in a foreign country. Quite how he’s doing this amazes me !
Apart from his own videos, he’s also found one or two really cracking videos that really address some of the issues that should be at the forefront of our minds as entrepreneurs and marketers. For example, I particularly like the one about the cab driver
So for sheer all round energy, innovation and versatility, today’s winner has got to be Iain Buchanan for www.iainbuchanan.me.
Congratulations Iain, your Blog Of The Day badge will be on its way to you very soon
Update: whoops ! I forgot to update The Roll Of Honour – now corrected !
Yesterday, I heard that Yahoo have proposed a scheme whereby individuals could choose to pay to send email. It’s known as 
